Trackcenter Top Ten

The new college cross country regional rankings are out. Two teams who did well at this weekend’s Bubble Buster right here in Toledo zoomed up their rankings: winner Butler went from #7 to #3 in the Great Lakes region, and third-place Columbia went from #8 to #3 in the Northeast region.

The new head women’s track coach at Northern Michigan University is Cheree Hicks, formerly an assistant at the University of Miami (the one in Florida). Normally this kind of coach shuffling to a Division II program wouldn’t merit mention, but this one does for one reason: Hicks is going to have to get used to vastly different weather. Average January daily low temperature in Miami, Florida: 59.8 degrees. Average January daily low temperature in Marquette, Michigan: 11 degrees.

As a person considering leaving my salaried job with benefits and a pension plan and 180 days off per year in order to be a running store employee*, I found this top eleven list to be most enlightening.*Yes, seriously. That’s how pissed off most teachers are these days.

The name Jason McElwainn may not ring a bell, but it might jog your memory if I remind you that two years ago he was an autistic high school student whose career consisted of four minutes in one game…and, to the delight of the school, he scored 20 points. Now he’s run 3:01 for the marathon and qualified for Boston.